Album Tracks Vs. Single Tracks?

I would like to add one more thing about my entry.. that was now two entries ago... yaknow, when I mentioned Msn conversations?

I forgot to say, that if you do have msn, you should definitely add me! I love to have a good ol' chat! Maybe we could rant together. lolol. 

On the topic of rants. Today's rant, is one of those things, that I've always found to be something I can rant about for a while. lol. 

Today, I was listening to an album I have not heard until now by one of my favourite artists - who shall remain nameless. I quite like all the singles on this album, but listening to the other tracks, to be honest.. my reaction was something like "What.. IS THIS?" This is unusual for this particular artist, as normaly their album tracks could all be singles, they are of equal value and quality to eachother. This was not the case with this album. 

Now I know that this happens a lot with artists and bands. They seem to make quality singles, and then you buy their album and you just can't understand why their album tracks are so plain compared to their singles. You sit there, annoyed and disapointed, wanting your 20 bucks back.

I wonder if this is a mantality that is in the recording industry - honestly, I have no idea. But, is it that people feel that they have "album worthy" tracks and "single worthy" tracks? 

I know that if I was a recording artist (which I'd love to be by the way.) I would want to make sure that every song on my album, was good enough that they could all be singles. 

I find it even more frustrating and disapointing, when an artist I really like, has album tracks that I think really aren't worth spending money on. Especially when I know that particular artists is so much more talented than some of their songs seem to suggest. 

I hate it when I'm listening to a song and thinking "This is missing.. something..." 

I've noticed a lot of pop music these days has no layering (is that the right word? I dont' know.).. I feel like rythems in a song should be built up gradually. Imagine it like.. lasagne. The lasagne being the song at the end and the layers being each beat or instrument you add, to build the song. You have to build up the layers properly, on by one, for the lasagne to work. 

Some songs these days sound too flat to me. I don't mean flat in pitch.. there's no body in them, it's like they're missing layers in their lasagne rescipe. 

It's like - if we return to the lasagne analogy once more - they finish cooking the lasagne take it out to the table, and the customer is sitting there stairing at their plate thinking "Is that it?" 

(Then again, some songs are just plain bad, they're missing everything including actual talent.)

Too many people these days (consumers and producers of music) seem to be worried about singles and not albums. Music downloads seem to have made people forget about albums. 

What's it matter when you can just download the singles of the songs you want? 

If people are only downloading/buying singles, does it matter if the album tracks aren't as good? Guess we can just though some half-assed crap in there.

I'm not saying that every album track that isn't as good as an arist/bands singles is a half-assed song just thrown in there. But there just doesn't seem to be much perfection in the music industry a lot of the time. It's like they can't get it quite right so they just settle for second best.

I mean sure, some people - alot of people, are just in the music industry to make a quick buck. But to me, music is a form of expression and art. Each piece of music you create should have a part of you in it.

I don't mean you have to be some kind of musical-mulit-instrumental-genius either. Some artists create music with emotion in it, and they don't even play any of the instruments. It doesn't mean the music doesn't come from them. 

People seem to get annoyed a lot with artists who don't write their own songs. I don't think that's a problem, as long as you still put emotion into the song when you sing it.

Elton John and Elvis Presley didn't write all their own songs. Hell, Michael Jackson didn't even write all of his own songs. But no one can tell me they didn't put their own emotion into their songs when they sang them. 

It doesn't even have to be the same emotions as the person who wrote the song was feeling. Everyone realtes to music in a different way, and I think it should be open for the interpretation of others.

I mean, haven't you ever listened to a song that you could relate to how you were feeling at the time, even though the song wans't about whatever you were upset/happy/whatever about?

Or a song that has triggered emotions in you made you laugh/cry/smile even though whatever the song is about may not be something you can directly relate to? 

If you haven't, you should listen closer to some of the music you like,you're missing out. 

Then again, all the music you have may be the kind that doesn't involve a lot of this emotion stuff. Which is fine, I have some of that music too, I'm not going to lie. Not all music has to be deeply emotional and meaningful, that sounds rather depressing really... but I think, no matter what kind of song it is, they should still have your everything in them, all your effort should go into making each one as amazing as the other, a part of you in each song. Whethere it's the sad, happy, funky, freaky, loving, heartbroken or any other amazing amount of sides to you it could be. Just none of this half-assed "album track" stuff. 

xoxo

Ps Please!

First of all, I should clarify something from my previous post. 

If you remember, I said I quite dislike people who start conversations with "Hey, sup?" 

If you do happen to talk to me, my whole opinion of you won't be based on whether you say "Hey, sup?" I don't mind if you start the conversation like that, as long as you actually have something to tell me when I say "How about you?" after I have answered your question, hopefully by saying something interesting I may have done. If however, you simply say "not much" and  leave me with nothing to reply to, I am not going to be a fan of yours.

Now, onto the actual topic I  had the intention of writing about in this blog.
Soon, I shall be going for my licence. Now, if you aren't a resident of Victoria, let me explain the process of how you go about getting your licence here in the land of Over-the-top-extreme-requirements-before-you-can-drive-because-we're-retarded. 

First of all, you get your leaner permit. Jolly excitiing stuff. To get your learners permit, you have to read this book.. uh.. I don't remember what it's called, I'm sure it's around here somewhere... ANYWAY, you read this book about road rules yeah? You "study" said book, and then you do a computer test on Australian road rules. Okay fair enough, most places make you do a test anyway, you should probably know the road rules before you start driving, or you wouldn't be able to forget them later when you get your licence. 

Now, when you get your Ls you get another book; the Learner Log Book. This book, is where you record your hours, and check off all the things you've learnt in the different stages of driving. How fun! Are you exicited? 

You have to record 120 hours of driving. Which must include 10 hours of night driving. Sounds fair enough, yeah? I mean, you just write down the time you started and the time you finished and add it up in a total right? WRONG. 

In the log book, each time you drive, you have to include; 

• The date. 
• The time you started am/pm (heaven forbid that you should use 24 hour time, that might be a bit hard for the people at Vic Roads.)
• The time you finished am/pm. 
• The total driving time "this trip". 
• The running total of driving time (as in, adding up all the driving you've done so far in the whole book).
• Night driving time"this trip".
• Running night driving time.
• Car registration. 
• Odometer reading start and finish.
• Traffic conditions: light, moderate or heavy. 
• Weather:  wet or dry. 
• Light conditions: day, dusk or night.
• Type of road: residential roads, main roads, inner city roads, freeway, rural highway, other rural roads and gravel roads.
• Superivising driver's licence number.
• Supervising driver's signature

And if that wasn't enough, you also have to write the learner driver's name and permit number at the top of every page. 

Now I don't know if anyone else agrees, and I hate to put a damper on Vic Roads effort to look like they are making more of an effort when it comes to new drivers, but does half of that stuff even matter?

Apart from the recording of 10 hours of night driving, you are not required to have any other kind of driving recorded. So really, you don't need to say whether it was dusk or day, because what's it matter as long as it wasn't nightime? You don't need to say if you were driving when it was wet, or dry, because you aren't required to have any hours of wet driving. Do they even check if you've driven in the rain?

You aren't required to have a certain amount of time on any sorts of roads, so why do you need to tell them what kind of roads you're driving on? 

The odometer reading makes sence, I guess if you have a whole lot of hours and not many kilometres it's obvious you're lying.. but if someone's going to lie about how many hours they've done, I'm sure they've figured that out already and there is no way to check if they are lying about the odometer reading, because it is all past tence. 

Now, I'm not just complaining about this being a stupid idea, I do have a point and my point is. If Vic Roads really wanted to make a difference to how safe of a driving you are before you get your Ps, they should include other requirements apart from 10 hours of night driving, instead of just putting a bunch of useless things in their book that you fill out for no aparent reason. 

Vic Roads has said that the 120 hours of driving makes you a safer driver when you're on your Ps. I have no doubt that it does. But if you do 120 hours of driving only during the day in sunny conditions and at night in fine conditions, you're not a safe driver when it comes to driving at night in the rain, are you?

My point is, if Vic Roads really wanted to make people safer drivers, they'd have more requirements within the 120 hours of driving. Driving in the rain, driving on the freeway, driving in heavy traffic, etc. Instead of just including them as pointless things to tick off in the book so it just looks like they care about them.

Anyway, after you've done your 120 hours, you're ready to get your licence. Though if I were you, I'd get more than 120 hours, because you have to show your log book to them, and if they don't think it's good enough, they'll cross them out.

I learnt from this article that Vic Roads says they won't accept a log book if;

"Parts of any pages were damaged, illegible or missing;
Log entries had not been completed in pen;
Any entries had been deleted or modified;
Learner drivers' details were not written at the top of each page; or
VicRoads was not satisfied the entries were valid or complete.."

I'm not sure how that last one works exactly since your book is assesed by an individual person and whether it is acceptable is partly based on their opinion as an individual, there's no board that discusses this. 

Well done Vic Roads, you're fool proof system is based on the judgement and opinion of the one person over the counter, who looks over the learner driver's log book before they do their driving test. 

Oh and don't think that all you have to do to get your licence is fill out that book and show it to them when you're done by the way, cause you'd be wrong again. 

Before you get your licence, or even do your driving test. You have to do the Hazard Perception Test.

That is, a computer test about how you well.. percieve hazards on the road. Basically, it's a simulated kind of driving thing on a computer, and you click on the mouse when you should slow down in a certain situation and stuff like that. It's really quite unnessary, especially since the percentage you need to pass is quite low, and if you did make that many mistakes on the road, you may either kill someone or die yourself. 

I highly doubt the passing of this test makes a difference to how good of a driver you must be. Since the simulation is hardly anything like driving a real car. 

After you pass your Hazard Perception Test, you get to do the fun bit. The actual driving test.

The driving test goes for 45 Minutes, and in that time you have to demonstrate your competence as a driver. Including, changing lanes safely, turning right at an intersection all that kind of stuff. Plus you have to demonstrate you can successfully reverse parallel park or two point turn. I say 'or' because you don't have to do both, it depends on which one is chosen by the assesor for you. 

You have a time limit on these tasks and if you don't complete them in a certain time, you fail that part of the test. I'm not entirely sure why there needs to be a time limit on these things - I mean, fair enough you shouldn't take a billion years to park or turn around - but I don't know that you need to do either of those things extremely quickly. 

In the parallel park, you are not allowed to go back out to the starting position and start again if you do stuff it up, you must correct yourself from where you are. I'm sorry but.. why? If you were in a real life situation and you happened to need to parellel park, if you screwed up, you'd start again. You wouldn't just stop and say "Oh, darn I've failed. Well.. guess I can't park here now." unless you were some kind of retard.

Also, during your driving test, if you make more than 2 critical errors, such as; failing to indicate when turning or changing lanes, stalling the car if it's a manual test, failing your paralell park etc. You have failed the test. 

Oh and you better use your mirrors a whole lot because if you don't you're obviously a bad driver and don't deserve to have your licence. 

My driving instructor told me that he has had people do tests where he's sure they've failed, and then the tester has told them that they've passed, when he questioned the tester as to how the tester basically told him that the person used their mirrors a lot, how could they not pass? 

The reverse has also happened, sure they've passed they did great. No, no they haven't. They didn't use their mirrors enough. 

Can you see the point I'm making here? Vic Roads is very inconsistant with things they are strict about and things they aren't. 

"You didn't crash, or kill anyone, and your parallel park was beauitful.. buuuttt.. you didn't use your mirrors enough so you don't get your licence today."

"Now you, you can't paralell park to save your life, and you changed lanes across in front of someone, but you used your mirrors like a pro! I've never seen someone use their mirrors so much! Here, have your licence!" 

Now, I'm sure that's not how it went down, but you can understand the point I'm making.

It's true that it used to be too easy for people to get their licence, but I think Vic Roads may have gone a bit too far the other way. P platers do have the highest death toll, but I have to say, having all these extra things we have to do to get our licence, isn't going to stop idiots for being idiots. Unless you can devise a test for that, I'm sorry Vic Roads, but all your doing is making the people who probably already would've been pretty safe drivers, even safer drivers and you're still not stoping the idiots from being idiots, no matter how many driving hours they have.

Oh I almost forgot, once you've gone though all of that and got your licence, for the first year, you are on your red Ps. Hope you didn't want to take your friends anywhere because you have a passenger restriction.

Only one passenger allowed in the car between the age of 16 and 21. With the exclusion of family. 

Why you ask? Because Vic Roads research into P plate crashes has shown that having more people in the car increases the likeliness of the driver to speed.

Well Vic Roads, I bet that is true. But like I said before, as much as it does suck, the adding of this law isn't going to stop idiots from being idiots. They would've been the ones breaking the law speeding before this law, now they'll just break the law twice by having people that aren't supposed to be in the car in the car and speeding. While the rest of us who actually obey the law and wouldn't be speeding anyway, have to suffer. 

Oh and not to mention, because of this law, say there is a party? Before, one person would take home 4 other people, yes? One designated driver for every 4 people. Well, now half a party has to be designated drivers. Okay sure, some of them may be on their green Ps, but most people's friends would be pretty close to the same age as them, so mahority of them would be on their red Ps... ergo.. drunk, speeding P platers.

Also, since a red P plater can only drive one other person around, we need more cars and drivers to get places so guess what? More P platers on the road! Good idea, let's add more of who - by Vic Roads statistics - are the most dangerous drivers on the road, to the road! That will definitely reduce P Plate crashes!

I can tell a lot of thought and anylysis went into this red P plates law before it was put into practice. 

I hate to say it but it seems to have the potential to create more problems than it solves. Vic Roads need to analyse the problems of why P platers are such dangerous drivers (for example, how many P platers do you see driving V6 Commodores?)  a lot more if they want to find actual solutions to the problem rather than things that look good on paper.

I hope you enjoyed my very very long rant. Believe it or not I may have forgotten some things.

I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way about all of this.
I'm not saying Vic Roads shouldn't do something about the death tolls on our roads and everything. I'm saying they should do something that works.

Enough rant from me. Have a very pleasant rest of your day. 

xoxo

Sup? Let's censor the internet.

Hey, what's up? lol. - Am I the only person who quite dislikes people that start conversations like that? Like, I don't mean in real life (although, thinking about it now, I'd probably not like them very much either.) I mean, people on msn. Like, I swear that's the first way to kill a conversation. Not always.. but majority of the time, if you start like that, the conversation is garunteed to be dead within the next 5 minutes of it starting. 

"Hey."

"Hey"

"Sup?"

"Not much.. you?"

"Yeah, not much either."

... the end.

Everytime someone starts a conversation with that, it's just so.. boring. I always try to start a conversation with someone, like.. in the middle of a conversation, give them something to reply to that isn't "sup?" or "how are you?" something far more exciting! 

"Do you know what I did this morning? I set my alarm for 6pm instead of 6am and then I was late for work. I had to like, run around and get ready 3 billion times quicker than normal, I even forgot to have breakfast. :P" 

"Haha, really? I remember one time.. "

See? That wasn't the best example.. but that is a conversation that's going somewhere! It still might not last very long, but it lasts longer than 2 messages each, for sure.

I guess it also depends on the person you're talking to... some people I talk to on msn, it just doesn't matter what I say to them, the conversation rarely goes very far. But in person, I have amazing conversations with them. Some people you should just not talk to on msn. lolol.

Anyway, that was - believe it or not - not what I was intending to talk about in this entry. Although it's somewhat on topic... sort of...

I was at the shops with a few friends today, and I don't remember how we got on the topic, but we began talking about how the goverment wants to censor the internet. 

Now, I know I'm not the only one with a problem with this. For starters, no one I know likes the idea of it. Infact, where are the people that support this idea? Cause from where I'm sitting it sure isn't the majority. 

The only people that seem to like the idea of slowing down the internet by upto 70% or some crap to censor majority of sites that are only a problem you're an absolute retard, is well.. people who appear to be absolute retards. 

If parents want to stop their kids from seeing.. porn or whatever it is that they're so extremely worried about, they can use filters on their own computer to stop them from being able to access it. And if the government wants to sotp trade of child pornography and other such disgusting things, they should do something proper about it instead of just censoring the internet for the whole country. Why does the whole country need to suffer cause some people are paranoid or on the other hand, need to be locked up?

Not to mention, censoring the internet isn't going to stop the people who really want to do whatever it is they were already doing from doing it anyway. If they want to get past the censor, they'll find a way.

I'm sure there's already people posting things on the internet about how to get past these censors. People do it in China, why wouldn't they do it here? 

I haven't read up much about this whole censoring internet issue in a little while but from what I have read, the stuff that is censored, doesn't always make sence - I guess it's like a lot of networks, I know Novell does it a bit. A site may be censored for whatever reason, and a site almost identical to that, isn't censored.

Oh and about that slowing down thing I mentioned earlier? I mean... it's not like we don't already have the slowest internet IN THE WORLD. Slowing it down even more sounds like fun! ... -.- 

To me, the idea of censoring the internet, just seems like the governments way of quick-fixing the problems the internet presents in certain instances. It's not the real solution to the problem, but it involves minimal effort and it'll keep the loud minority of people quite for a while. (Until the realise that it's not working.)

Censoring the internet isn't going to solve the real problems on the internet, such as child pornography, tutorials about making bombs and god knows what else. The people that really want to find these kinds of things, will be the people who find ways around the censorship and the rest of us will just suffer even slower internet, the blocking of completely innocent sites, and the general frustration of being the only country in the world apart from China with censored internet. 

I don't know about you, but the idea of moving somewhere else if the inernet is censored sounds pretty good to me.

Hey, Australian Government, sup? Let's not censor the internet. kthanks. :)

Awkward Introductions

Okayyyyyyy... my first entry.

Gosh, first entries are so hard to.. start. It's like the awkward first meeting of someone you don't know.

You know, you talk about yourself, and ask them about themselves, and try to build a foundation to work from, get to know eachother. Once you get past that, you know the person, you can talk about anything!

So hopefully, when I get past this entry, writing my blog will be a whole lot easier. 

I was thinking of posting my old myspace blog entries, but I decided I might just post a link to them.

It's mostly about my trip in New Zealand a while ago, my views on Michael's death, year 12 last year, This Is It. Probably a few other things I've forgotten. Do have a read if you'd like! I don't really use my myspace anymore, since Facebook has taken over.. the world. lolol. Much to my disapointment, Facebook does not have a blog section,. Hopefully my old blogs will give you a idea of the kind of writing I'll be doing.
I'm hoping to update this blog more often than I did my Myspace one.

hmm...

Now, we're back to the awakward silence, you know, when that person you're meeting for the first time finishes answering your question, and neither of you can think of another question to ask eachother? 

And someone says something to the effect of "sooo.." or "I've run out of things to say!" and then there's that half chuckle-laughing thing you do. This is normaly the point in the meeting where someone hopefully saves you from the semi-awkardness. Unfortunately I can't just throw another person into my blog. :P

Luckily, there is only one awkward introduction and first meeting for each person you meet. - Except for those people you meet once and then never see again for ages and you have to go through the same process more than once. But don't worry, I don't plan to leave such a big gap between my posts.

I've already thought of some things I can write to you about (whoever you are). Hopefully you'll find my writing interesting, and you'll leave your opinions in a comment! 

Don't worry, I don't expect you to leave a comment on this rather un-eventful first entry, I just needed something to say to get me started! Hopefully I haven't ranted on for too long, and you'll come back and read my next real entry! 

Until then, TTFN - Ta Ta For Now!